The Motor Boat Club in Florida: or, Laying the Ghost of Alligator Swamp

“Is Mr. Tremaine rising?” inquired Mrs. Tremaine.

“No; sleeping like a log,” replied Dixon.

“Then I’ll go in and arouse him,” declared Mrs. Tremaine. “I noticed from the stateroom port that we are running rather close to shore. We must be near the end of our present voyage.”

Mrs. Tremaine disappeared into the starboard stateroom, but presently looked out again, bewilderment expressed on her face.

“I can’t guess what’s the matter with Henry,” she confessed. “I’ve called to him, and shaken him, but he doesn’t answer me. He’s breathing so heavily that I – I’m alarmed.”

By this time Captain Tom Halstead was presentable enough to join the others. After greeting the three, he followed Mrs. Tremaine and Dixon to the starboard stateroom.

Henry Tremaine surely was breathing heavily – almost with a rattle, in fact. But Tom, pressing past the others, succeeded in making the charter-man open his eyes.

“All right,” he muttered, as though still in a daze. “I’ll get up, right away.”

“I’ll stay and help you dress,” proposed Tom, upon which the other two retreated.

“Gracious! How my head feels!” groaned Tremaine, as he got unsteadily onto his feet. Tom had to clutch at him and hold him.

“I feel as though I had been drugged,” muttered Tremaine, slowly. “I – I can’t half think, and my head aches, and is so dizzy – ”

“You’ll want to get in the air, then,” proposed the young skipper, as Tremaine finished getting on the last of his clothes.

“Where – are we?”

“Why, since Mrs. Tremaine saw land from the port stateroom, I think we must at least be in the mouth of Oyster Bay, sir.”

“Then, if we’re going to land so soon,” proposed Henry Tremaine, “I may as well get my money out. Halstead, be a good fellow. I feel so bad that I don’t dare bend over. Here are my steamer trunk keys. Open the trunk and lift out the small iron box you’ll find there. I have ten thousand dollars in bills there. I’ll deposit the money on shore.”

Halstead readily found the iron box, and placed it on the edge of the berth. Tremaine, still groaning about his head, fitted a key into the box, and raised the strong lid.

“What’s this?” Tremaine almost yelled, as soon as he had the iron box opened.

Tom Halstead looked, then gasped.

“Why, there’s not a dollar – not a sou – in this box!” roared Henry Tremaine. “Yesterday, there was ten thousand dollars in it!”

His excited exclamations brought the other passengers to the doorway.

“What’s the matter, my dear?” inquired Mrs. Tremaine.

“Why,” exclaimed her husband, bewilderedly, “I appear to be out ten thousand dollars. The money was in this box yesterday afternoon.”

“Robbed?” gasped Mrs. Tremaine.

“So it would seem,” retorted her husband, dryly. “And – Jupiter! From the way my head feels, I’ve been drugged, too! Of course the thief had to drug me, in order to be sure that I wouldn’t wake up when he came in during the night.”

“Who has had access to this cabin while we slept?” demanded Oliver Dixon. “That negro – Ham?”

“No,” rejoined Tom Halstead, promptly. “Ham has been asleep in his berth. I locked the door into the cabin. I’m the only one who had access here.”

“Do you know anything about where the money went to, Halstead?” inquired Mr. Tremaine, looking up at him.

“I?” stammered the young sailing master of the “Restless.” “Certainly not, sir!”

“Then who does?” demanded Oliver Dixon, shooting a suspicious look at the young captain.

As Tom Halstead glanced swiftly from one face to another, something of the awful meaning of the situation flashed over him.

“See here,” he muttered, hoarsely, “I hope none of you think I could do anything like this! I? Rob my own passengers? Why, it would settle my fate as a yacht commander all in an instant! No, no! You surely must all see that I simply couldn’t have done a thing like this!”

CHAPTER IV

“BOAT-CALL FOR THE POLICE”

“WE’D certainly hate to believe anything of the sort,” said Oliver Dixon, slowly, in a half-purring tone, though reluctant suspicion sounded in his voice.

“I wouldn’t believe that– not if anyone swore himself as an eye-witness,” declared Ida Silsbee, promptly.

Skipper Tom thanked her with a swift, eloquent glance.

“It would seem absurd,” declared Mrs. Tremaine, though there was the briefest touch of hesitation in her tone.

“Confound my buzzing head! I don’t know what to say yet,” grumbled Henry Tremaine.

“I want this matter investigated to the very bottom,” protested Halstead, his voice shaking as no terror of the hurricane could have made it shake.

“Oh, well, the money must be somewhere on board, unless the one who took it threw it into the sea,” replied Henry Tremaine, pulling himself to his feet.

“And we won’t let anyone off this yacht, either, until the search has been made to the very end,” declared Tom Halstead. “Everybody and every nook and corner must stand search.”

“For that matter,” smiled Oliver Dixon, dully, “there must be countless little nooks and crannies on this boat where anyone knowing the craft could tuck away a small bundle of banknotes.”

“I’ll show every nook and cranny I know,” retorted Tom, turning almost fiercely on Dixon. “So will Joe Dawson. And, to prove our good faith, we’ll let the police authorities bring on board as many men as they like whose knowledge will fit them to search a craft like this.”

“Captain Halstead,” asked Ida Silsbee, stepping forward, speaking very softly, while her cheeks glowed, “will you take my hand?”

In sheer gratitude Captain Tom seized the dainty hand offered him, pressing it hard, while Oliver Dixon looked on, green-eyed with jealousy.

“Won’t you let me offer my hand, too, Captain Halstead?” asked Mrs. Tremaine.

Tom grasped hers, in turn.

“Oh, hang it all,” cried Henry Tremaine, “ten thousand dollars isn’t all the money in the world. It isn’t all the money in my little world, either. This will all come out all right. I want to be a decent fellow, and I would be, too, if this raging head of mine would only let me.”

“I’ll help you to a seat, dear, and bathe your head,” suggested Mrs. Tremaine, to which suggestion her husband assented.

“I must go on deck, now – simply must,” announced Halstead. “Yet I’d feel better about it if one of you could come up with me – just to see that I don’t dispose of the money, you know,” he added, with a wan attempt at a smile.

“I’m not needed here; I’ll go with you, Captain,” spoke up Ida Silsbee.

“No, no, no!” protested Dixon, almost hoarsely, as he pressed forward. “I will go.”

“By all means, Mr. Dixon, if you wish,” replied Ida Silsbee, flashing a curious look at him. “But I’m going with Captain Halstead, anyway, and I think you might better remain here, to be of possible service to Mrs. Tremaine.”

“But – but you’ll be in danger on deck,” objected Dixon.

“I doubt it,” retorted Ida Silsbee, with a toss of her head. “But even so, I shall be in the care of two whose bravery I have been made to respect.”

“As you will, then,” replied Dixon, in what he meant to be a coaxing voice. Yet his scowling look followed Tom Halstead.

“It was tremendously good of you – ” murmured the young skipper, as the two walked through the passageway.

“What? To believe you honest?” inquired the girl. “I can’t believe that young men as cool and brave, and as unmindful of fatigue, as you two have been through the night can be anything but staunch and honest.”

“Thank you. Now, wait a moment, please, until I call out to Ham to pull his berth curtains before you pass through the motor room,” urged Halstead.

It took him a minute or so to rouse Ham Mockus and make that steward comprehend. Then the young skipper led the girl into the motor room.

“It’ll be pretty wet on deck, even yet,” hinted the lad, pausing in the motor room. “Here’s an oilskin coat. You had better slip it on.”

After helping her into the enveloping garment, Halstead assisted her to step onto the bridge deck.

“Better get a tight hold on the life-lines, Miss Silsbee,” he urged.

Joe Dawson, dog tired, was glad none the less, that his chum had been able to snatch some rest. Joe nodded brightly to both, then the sight of the young captain’s drawn face caught the young engineer’s attention.

“What on earth is the matter, Tom?” he demanded.

“During the night ten thousand dollars belonging to Mr. Tremaine has disappeared.”

“No!” exploded Joe, incredulously.

“It seems to be a fact, though,” Tom nodded, dully. “Let me have the wheel. Then stand by and I’ll tell you about it.”

The “Restless” was, as Halstead had supposed, now running in at the mouth of Oyster Bay. Though the water was rough, here at the mouth, it was noticeably smoother than it had been out on the Gulf. A good deal of spray dashed over the bow and rail from starboard. It was broad daylight, though a gray, drizzly morning. The low, sandy coast, with scant forestry, looked uninviting enough in the dull light.

As for Skipper Tom, he took only a long enough look at his surroundings to make out where he was. Then he plunged into his story, while Miss Silsbee walked down by the cabin deck-house.

“Naturally, perhaps,” Tom finished, “there’s almost a suspicion that I got the money.”

“You?” gasped Joe, thunderstruck. All his belief in his comrade was expressed in the explosive, unbelieving way that he uttered that single syllable, “you.”

“Of course I haven’t touched the money,” Tom pursued, dully, as he threw the wheel over to avoid the worst force of an onrolling big wave. “But yet you can’t blame Mr. Tremaine, if he wonders, can you?”

“I blame him for poor judgment of human nature, anyway!” vented Joe Dawson, hotly.

“Bravo, Mr. Dawson!” applauded Ida Silsbee, and Joe turned to acknowledge this championship with a graceful bow.

“When we reach anchor, presently,” Tom went on, doggedly, “I’m going to sound the whistle for the police, and I mean to have every man on board searched from top to toe. That failing, we’ll search every corner of the boat itself.”

“Oh, you and I can stand a search, all right,” declared Joe, cheerily, only to add, glumly:

“But to think that such a thing as that could happen aboard the ‘Restless’! I tell you, I – ”

He had been about to declare his suspicion of Oliver Dixon, whom he had disliked almost from the first, when Joe suddenly recollected Miss Silsbee’s presence. Dixon was paying court to this girl, and Dawson wanted to play fairly.

Through Halstead’s mind, however, the same suspicion of the young man was running. For now the young skipper remembered the vial in which he had seen Dixon dissolving something. Captain Halstead also remembered having, through the peep-hole, seen Dixon pour some of the contents of the vial into the water bottle on the sideboard.

“And Mr. Tremaine is the only one of the passengers who takes a glass of water the last thing before turning in,” flashed through the youthful skipper’s mind.

The hatchway opened to admit another arrival on deck. This time it was Dixon, who had only awaited his opportunity to gain the deck before Ida Silsbee could prevent.

“You came on deck, anyway,” was the girl’s rather chilly greeting. Joe having fallen back from the wheel, Miss Silsbee stepped up beside the youthfull skipper, as though determined to give Dixon no chance for her society. Joe Dawson was quick to follow this up by saying:

“Mr. Dixon, if you’ve the time to spare, I’d like to have you walk aft with me. I’ve one or two things I’m burning to ask.”

“Well?” demanded the young man, as they reached the after deck.

“How did Captain Halstead happen to get locked in with the air compartment last night?”

“How do I know?” muttered the young man, paling slightly.

“Don’t you?”

“Of course not.”

“Do you suspect any of our crew of taking Mr. Tremaine’s money?” persisted Joe.

“Why, that would be a fearful thing to say.”

“Don’t you care to answer me?”

“I don’t care to discuss the matter at all.”

“Very good, sir,” returned Dawson, curtly. “That is all.”

Turning on his heel, he left Dixon, the latter feeling queerly uncomfortable, for, all the time they were talking together, Joe had kept his own eyes turned keenly on Dixon’s.

Miss Silsbee kept so close to Tom that Dixon, when he finally came forward once more, soon made an excuse to go below.

“Have you ever seen the town of Tres Arbores?” queried Halstead, something like three-quarters of an hour later.

“Never,” replied Ida Silsbee.

“Unless my chart lies, that’s Tres Arbores off the starboard bow,” Halstead continued.

“Is that where Mr. Tremaine wants you to dock?”

“It’s the present end of the voyage. We can’t dock, though, as there is no dock there. We’ll have to anchor and row ashore to the little landing stage.”

Joe, five minutes later, routed Ham up from below. That young colored man came up rubbing his eyes, but he looked mightily pleased when he caught sight of the nearby shore.

“Ah reckon ole Satan didn’ ride dat gale all de way,” he grinned. “We’se done reach poht all right.”

Joe, with the sounding lead, kept track of the depths here. Tom ran the “Restless” in to within a quarter of a mile of the landing stage, then shut off speed, drifting under decreasing headway for some distance ere he gave the word for Joe and Ham to heave the anchor.

Then, all at once, the whistle shrilled out, in a succession of long blasts.

“What’s that for?” asked Miss Silsbee, curiously, when the din had stopped.

“Boat-call for the police,” replied Tom Halstead, reddening not a little.

CHAPTER V

TOM HAS SOME OF HIS OWN WAY

“OH, what a pity!” cried the girl, in a voice of genuine distress. “I’m almost certain Mr. Tremaine won’t like that.”

“It is a matter with which Mr. Tremaine has very little to do,” replied the youthful skipper of the “Restless.” “A robbery has been committed on the boat I command, and it’s my duty, as well as my own desire, to have the police come aboard.”

On shore, in the sleepy-looking little town, nearly a dozen people of varying ages were visible from the boat. All of these had turned waterward when the whistle sounded so long and shrilly.

“Likely as not the police force has taken a small boy with him and gone fishing somewhere,” observed Halstead, dryly, as he reached once more to sound the whistle.

The Tremaines and Dixon had come up on deck through the after cabin hatch, and now stood looking curiously ashore.

As the second series of long whistles woke the echoes of this little Florida town, a negro was seen to amble down to the shore, step into a boat and push off. He rowed until within hailing distance, when he called:

“W’ut you-uns gwinter want – provisions or gas-oil?”

“We’ve been sounding the police call,” Tom shouted back. “Send a policeman on board.”

“Good Lawd!” ejaculated the black man at the oars. But he put about, beached his boat and vanished up the street. Presently he came back, followed by a drowsy-looking white man, not in uniform. After he had gotten his passenger aboard, the negro rowed more lustily than he had previously done, and soon ranged up alongside the “Restless.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” sang out the white man, “this amiable black Ananias tells me you want a police officer.”

“I do,” replied Halstead. “I am captain of this yacht – ”

“You?” returned the Tres Arbores officer, staring hard.

“I am captain of this yacht,” Tom nodded, “and there has been a disappearance of money on board. I shall be much obliged, as will most of the others, if you’ll come on board and search all the men. Afterwards, if necessary, the boat.”

“I reckon, I’ll have to understand this,” responded the lone policeman, as the negro in the small boat held out an oar which Ham seized, then drew the rowboat in close. As the officer stepped up onto the deck of the “Restless,” he threw back his coat, displaying a police star beneath.

“I am the one who lost the money,” explained Henry Tremaine, stepping forward and introducing himself. “I don’t want to subject anyone, especially this young captain and engineer, to any search. I’d sooner lose the money than bring upon any innocent person such a humiliation.”

“It won’t be any humiliation to me to be searched, when I know I didn’t take the money,” rejoined Tom Halstead, hotly. “Officer, I want the search made, and I’ll submit to it first.”

“But I object,” broke in Mr. Tremaine. “I don’t want anybody searched.”

“I reckon p’raps you-all had better explain this to me,” requested the policeman, who gave his name as Randolph.

Henry Tremaine told the story quickly.

“Why, sir,” replied Officer Randolph, “if you, Mr. Tremaine, refuse to make any complaint, I don’t see that I can do a thing.”

“But a crime has been committed,” insisted Halstead.

“It was committed outside this township, then,” responded Randolph. “And, since Mr. Tremaine refuses to press the matter, I might lay myself liable if I were to search anyone.”

“Why do you object, Mr. Tremaine?” appealed Tom, turning to the charter-man.

“Because,” replied that gentleman, “it’s all a puzzle to me, as it must be to the rest of us. I am satisfied that, somehow, the whole matter will be cleared up, presently, without recourse to the law.”

“But I want my boat and ourselves cleared,” protested the young skipper, looking more than ever worried.

“You and your boat will be cleared – somehow – not long from now,” replied Henry Tremaine, shortly. “I decline to be mixed up in any legal proceedings.”

“But Ah reckon Ah’s gotter hab de officer look me ober,” declared Ham Mockus, coming up from below, ready to go ashore, and carrying a most dilapidated valise. “You-all will see each other again, you-all, but I’se gwine ashoah, an’ likely yo’ll nebber see me again. So I asks de officer kindly to look mah bag frou, an’ den come below an’ look me ober. Ah don’ want to have you-all t’ink, bimeby, mebbe yo’d better had Ham Mockus looked ober.”

“Well, open your baggage, then,” grinned the police officer. “I’ll accommodate you, Mockus.”

Ham’s meagre baggage, on exploration, proved innocent enough. Then the officer took him below to the engine-room, soon coming back to the deck with the young colored man.

“He hasn’t much money about him,” reported Mr. Randolph.

“He’ll have a little more money now, though – his wages for the cruise,” replied Captain Tom, handing the black man an envelope.

“But Ah didn’ bargain fo’ no wages,” gasped Ham, in surprise. “Ah said Ah’d work fo’ passage.”

“Anyone who works for us gets paid for it,” rejoined Halstead, laconically.

Plainly enough Ham was overjoyed at this. His teeth showed in the grin that he gave, while he protested his thanks.

While Mr. Tremaine was bargaining with the negro boatman to put them ashore, Ida Silsbee moved over to Tom’s side.

“I know, Captain Halstead,” she whispered, “that you feel disappointed over not having a search made. But believe me, Mr. Tremaine does not understand how you feel. He doesn’t for a moment suspect, now, that you or Mr. Dawson took the money, and he knows Ham hasn’t it. Mr. Tremaine has his own notions of sensitiveness, and he prefers to drop the whole matter. He has been drugged. There isn’t a doubt about that, and his head is still bothering him so that he isn’t able to think clearly. Having made up his mind as best he can, however, he won’t change it.”

“It’ll be all right,” replied Tom, moodily, in a low voice. “I’ll have the thing settled myself.”

“This man is going to take us ashore,” broke in Mr. Tremaine, from several feet away. “Then he’ll come back for the baggage. Captain, you and Mr. Dawson will join us ashore at breakfast, won’t you?”

“One of us will,” Halstead made answer. “The other must remain aboard the yacht to look out for it.”

Ham went over the side with the late passengers, Officer Randolph remaining behind at Tom Halstead’s almost whispered request.

By the time that the boat put out from shore again the two boys and the Tres Arbores policeman were just coming up from below.

“Since they want one of us ashore, Tom,” urged Dawson, “you’d better be the one to go.”

“Why don’t you get on land and stretch your legs?” Halstead inquired.

“Humph!” grunted Dawson. “I don’t believe it would be safe for me to sit at table with that fellow Dixon. I’d feel a violent impulse, all the time, to put my closed hand against his face.”

“Not in the presence of ladies!” smiled Skipper Tom.

“It would be quite easy to decoy the fellow outside. Especially,” Joe added, in a whisper, “after what you told me about that vial Dixon had, and his dropping some stuff in the water decanter. Why didn’t you, or why don’t you, tell Mr. Tremaine about that?”

“He’d be likely to suspect I was trying to throw suspicion on his guest to keep it off myself,” Halstead replied, shaking his head.

While this was being said, Officer Randolph, who had walked astern, was out of hearing. While they were below Tom had found chance to tell his chum, in whispers, about the incidents of the vial and the water bottle. They had even investigated the water bottle on the sideboard, but had found it empty.

So it was Captain Tom who, on the third and belated trip of the boat, went ashore. Randolph went with him, even accompanying the young sailing master to the little hotel of which Tres Arbores boasted.

In the parlor they found the passengers of the “Restless” awaiting the summons to breakfast.

“You’ll join us, Mr. Randolph, of course,” pressed Mr. Tremaine.

“Thank you; I shall be happy to sit down and drink coffee with you,” replied the Southerner.

At that moment the proprietor entered, calling them to breakfast in the next room. As the proprietor seated them, Dixon was on one side of the table, with the Tremaines, Ida Silsbee being on the opposite side, between Randolph and the young motor boat captain.

As soon as the waiter had left them, Tom looked across at Mr. Tremaine, eyeing him steadily.

“I am sorry, sir,” remarked Tom, “to bring up this morning’s affair again. Yet I feel it due to myself to say that I have succeeded in my purpose of having Dawson, myself and the ‘Restless’ searched.”

“You have?” demanded Henry Tremaine, looking surprised though not altogether displeased.

“Yes, sir,” Randolph took the matter up. “As Captain Halstead insisted, after you had gone ashore I searched both young men, their baggage, their wardrobe lockers – every place and spot aboard – even to the gasoline tanks, sir. I found no trace of the money.”

As Tom Halstead’s glance swept the opposite side of the table he encountered the covert, sneering look of Oliver Dixon.

“Confound the fellow!” muttered young Halstead, under his breath. “I can sympathize with Joe’s desire to hit him!”

CHAPTER VI

THE ISLAND WHERE THERE WERE NO ALLIGATORS

IT was four days later.

Late the previous afternoon the party, traveling in two wagons, had reached Henry Tremaine’s Florida place at the head of Lake Okeechobee, an inland body of water, forty miles long and thirty broad, which lay at the northern extremity of the famous Florida Everglades.

The Everglades is a name given to a broad section of country whose duplicate cannot be found elsewhere in the world. It is a huge swamp district, dotted thickly with islands ranging in size from half an acre to islands many hundreds of acres in extent.

The Indians called this the “Grass Water” country. In the summer, or rainy season, the Everglades are practically impassable.

In some parts of the Everglades the water does not, in the dry, or winter season, exceed a foot in depth. In other places the water has a depth of six feet or more.

Yet, in this section, on the islands, some excellent crops may be raised, so that the country is by no means a hopeless waste. But the inhabitants have some things to dread. Rattlers and other poisonous snakes are frequently encountered in the Everglades. Watchfulness must be constantly exercised.

Curiously enough, many Northerners resort to the Everglades in winter. This is on account of the alligator shooting to be found there. In former years Henry Tremaine had done much alligator shooting in this section, having bought for a mere song a roomy, old-fashioned house that stood in the midst of considerable grounds at the head of Lake Okeechobee.